Product Description

Susan Hitchcock felt her family of four drifting apart. As she watched the daily demands of life tug her away from her husband and two young children, she knew they must find a way back to each other. So to reconnect as a family, they took to the sea.

Sailing for nine months and 3,500 miles around the Caribbean aboard Hei Tiki, they meet formidable challenges from the volatile moods of Mother Nature and the mighty ocean to the cultural barriers on distant islands and their own innermost fears. Though a novice sailor, Susan soon develops an affinity for the water, feeling her life pulse with the sensual rhythm of the tides. And through both the rigors and the serenity of sailing, her family discovers a newfound intimacy and joy in the adventure of a lifetime.

An inspiring and triumphant chronicle of life at sea, Coming About is a wonderful meditation on marriage, family, and the fulfillment of dreams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1014418 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
For leisure reading, Total Loss is highly recommended. For anyone going offshore, it should be required reading. -- Sailing & Yachting

About the Author
Paul Gelder is the editor of Yachting Monthly and has sailed thousands of miles in a variety of boats. He has written two books on round the world yacht races, The Loneliest Race and InterSpray's Race Around the World. He is no stranger to misfortune afloat. His boat, appropriately called Phoenix, a 30-ft trimaran, was blown ashore in a gale and rebuilt after being declared a total loss by the insurers.

Customer Reviews

All Hands Abandon Ship!
Forty-five fascinating accounts of every sailor's worst nightmare. Whether you own a sailboat, or just go sailing regularly, buy this book! Even if you don't sail, it is still a morbidly interesting read. Aside from hair-raisingly gruesome tales of sailboat shipwrecks (both protracted week long foundering, and instantaneous and catastrophic crashes are covered), the book also analyzes what went wrong in each case. These analyses may avert some future disasters, and probably have prevented many already. None of the stories involve deaths, only some injuries, but still should please even the most voyeuristic reader's desire to vicariously experience carnage at sea.

MUST READ, but BEWARE
This book badly needs to be edited by a marine expert. It could also be improved by publishing some statistics on how many such sinkings occur so how likely are some of the events.

Conclusions are from the skippers involved. This leads to errors and even deliberate misinformation.

The story of "Strumpet" is the worst; a father and two young boys spend the night on a yacht. The two boys have a kerosene lamp for light in the forward berth. The boys are called to breakfast and then the boat sets out, and soon the interior is engulfed in flame and smoke.

The skipper's explanation is that the boys put out the lamp, but supposedly the residual heat of the glass set the sleeping bags on fire and the fiberglass ignited with miraculous speed.

Finally the guy states that he will never go cruising in a fiberglass yacht again!

You tell me: Do you think the residual heat of glass ignited the sleeping bags--or do you think maybe two young boys forgot to put out the lamp before coming down to bacon and egg? Here's a clue: The first words out of the submitter's mouth in the conclusion are "Naturally the insurance company required a full explanation." Obviously they got a doozey.

Other stories also have questionable conclusions. One yacht's sinking is blamed on an off center companionway. Then it is noted that the ballast shifted in the yacht, causing her to list over far enough on the same side to allow water in. OK, the cause of this yacht's sinking is the shifting ballast, the companionway location was NOT the cause of the sinking. If your yacht has an off center companionway, don't worry, it's OK.

There are some REALLY GOOD STORIES! The story about the poorly maintained propane system leading to an explosion at dock that lost one sailor his leg should be read by EVERYONE. This stuff is just plain dangerous.

In conclusion, you should get this book and read it because it demonstrates why you need to have an EPIRB, life raft, abandon ship bag, and be ready to use them at any time. Stuff can happen that you have no control over. But be warned that the conclusions are not from experts and may be incorrect or misleading in some cases.

Get the book.

excellent, important, entertaining, and instructive book of disasters
i've probably read `total loss' 5 times now, it is an extremely hard book to put down and every year or so i find myself gravitating back to it again; for the armchair sailor these quick 45 stories are very entertaining and for the real sailor they are hugely, hugely instructive. for anyone who sails more than 4 hours from port, on a boat of any size, from dinghy to open 60, i believe the book is simply a top 10 "must read" for a really comprehensive anecdotal understanding of accidents and how they happen. each story is from a different, first person author, ranging over much of the 20th century, yet the book somehow achieves a coherent and very readable tone that other sailing compendiums regrettably lack. another, very similar, also excellent book is Joachim Shult's "mayday." enjoy, and leave a clean wake!